Comments on: A Deal-Collecting Email Addresshttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/
Financial talk for the rest of usWed, 17 Jun 2015 14:27:21 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0By: KHhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-714219
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:40:19 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-714219I got tired of all the deal emails flooding my inbox, so I created a filter to a separate folder. Now I only check it when I want to, and I’ll get together a few coupons/deals to go shopping (stores like Stein Mart, Penney’s, Express, Bath & Body Works, etc.)
]]>By: It's Frugal Being Greenhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-712173
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:51:54 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-712173Ryan:

The +aliases do work if you’re using google apps for email with your own domain.

]]>By: Jamiehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-710373
Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:39:17 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-710373I just use the labels and filtering tools on Gmail to have all my advertisement emails labeled and archived so I don’t see them unless I click on that particular label: it’s a lot easier than creating a whole new email account!
]]>By: Amyhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-708677
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:53:00 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-708677What a great idea! There are coupon/bargain sites too that offer emailed feeds that could go into the inbox to search for later. http://www.CrazyBargain.com is one I just added.
]]>By: Louhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698626
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:52:09 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698626Just want to comment that for books if you are only using Amazon, Borders and BN, you are missing out. Take a look at Powells.com for ease of finding books.
]]>By: Kevinhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698490
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:01:50 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698490Have been doing this for many years now on an old yahoo account I made.
]]>By: StephiB83http://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698315
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:47:40 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698315Excellent idea, Trent! I feel dumb that I hadn’t thought of that before! Thanks!
]]>By: Lukehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698159
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:19:59 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698159I see that my comment is very similar to Darin’s above – great minds think alike! :-)
]]>By: Lukehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698140
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:01:11 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698140I have a domain, let’s call it ‘mydomain.com’. For EVERY website I do business with, I pick an on-the-spot unique email address for that business’ domain. So, at The Simple Dollar my email is ‘thesimpledollar@mydomain.com’. At Amazon it’s ‘amazon@mydomain.com’ – and so on. Only friends get my ‘real’ email address.

At the receiving end everything goes into the catch-all bucket and I see it all. If anyone abuses the address and sends spam, I simply make a rule to move emails sent TO that particular name into the trash. For example if this site sells my address to Nigerian ‘entrepreneurs’, I can make a rule that moves anything sent to ‘thesimpledollar@mydomain.com’ into the trash. I also know that The Simple Dollar just sold my address, and know who to complain to.

This is great for logins. Most sites use or accept email address for their usernames, and I always know or can guess my username even for sites I’ve forgotten I ever registered at. At Amazon, for instance, my username is ‘amazon@mydomain.com’.

There’s an anti-phishing benefit too: if some crook sends a “please review your PayPal account information” email, and it’s not sent to ‘paypal@mydomain.com’, I know immediately it’s a fake.

]]>By: Darinhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-698120
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:39:36 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-698120I pay $20 a year for the Yahoo Mail Plus account. One of the benefits is that I can create up to 255 email separate email addresses that route back to my main email account. They all have the same base address “somebaseaddr-xxxx@yahoo.com” which is separate from my real email address (unlike Google) so that someone wouldn’t be able to guess the real one.

Each email addr can be routed to a folder, and can be configured to be in-only or in/out (i.e. you can send email out using that address). You can also delete any of these addresses or create new ones at any time. If you start getting spam on one, just delete it.

I typically create a new email addr for every site, business, or mailing list I sign up for.

]]>By: CathyGhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697959
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:36:48 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697959Trent – As an extension to Ashley’s comment 17:
“I’ll often google,”Barnes and Noble coupons” prior to going to the bookstore. I can always find great coupons this way without having to search through my email for them or having them directly sent to my email. ”

I’d like to see a blog post about finding coupons on the web, and solicit folks to comment on their own experiences. I usually have very bad luck with online coupons. Most of the sites returned by google are not actual coupons or even coupon sites – they are additional search engines which search for coupons, and they often don’t return any results.

If I do get to a coupon for a store, it usually is very specific about what it will cover or how much else you have to buy to use the coupon. Since I have already done all my research and chosen exactly what I want to buy, the coupons usually don’t apply to me.

I just wondered what experiences other folks have had and if I am the only one who doesn’t get good results.

]]>By: Michelehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697927
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:04:10 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697927I also use the other inbox. It is a great alternative. Yahoo also has disposible emails with their premium account. The other inbox is free.
]]>By: Gwenhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697289
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:10:50 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697289Good Idea. I created a “stuff” email account today.
]]>By: Brenthttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697268
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:35:17 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697268George — Sure, they could do that. Couple things though:

1) If you give the +deals address to all retailers, and all of a sudden one of those retailers starts mailing to your actual address (sans the plus), it’ll be pretty easy to figure out who, and you can either stop doing business with an untrustworthy, spammy company, or you can contact them to ask why they changed your address and request they change it back.

2) If the company sells your address and an actual spammer starts using it, you can’t catch them that way. But Gmail, for me, has been very, very good at catching actual spam (as opposed to legitimate retailers I sign up for). In a few years of having a Gmail account, I can remember maybe a few occasions where actual spam has been sent through unchecked. So you might be covered there.

If you really wanted to go all out, you could do what Jeremy or gumnos said, and just make up a new one for every retailer. You’re at Sears and they ask? Sure, it’s [myemail]+sears@gmail.com. You’re at Barnes and Noble? It’s [myemail]+bn@gmail.com.

]]>By: Ashleyhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697266
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:34:16 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697266Another idea, rather than signing up for offers, is to search for a company’s offers online prior to shopping. I’ll often google,”Barnes and Noble coupons” prior to going to the bookstore. I can always find great coupons this way without having to search through my email for them or having them directly sent to my email. Sometimes retailers will send different coupons to different customers, and this way you can often find the best coupons that may not have been sent to you anyway.
]]>By: Hannahhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697253
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:19:46 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697253George- I do agree with you on the one hand that by giving in and supplying my personal information, I encourage the annoying practice to continue (even though I use a known fake number and fake email address). But on the other hand- I’m 19 and a lot of my friends work retail jobs where they have to do this. When I look at it from their perspective, I feel better giving out some info just to give them a break, knowing that I am never going to have to deal with the annoying consequences of it anyway.

This debate reminds me of the one about clicking ads on your favorite website to give a “tip” to the owner of the website. Some argue it’s a great thing to do, other argue it’s harmful because when you don’t actually buy anything from the advertiser, they realize their ad isn’t working, and pull it.

For now it really depends on your perspective. Eventually the online advertising industry will evolve and we probably won’t have to debate this.

]]>By: Xokehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697240
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:00:59 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697240I use spam gourmet (spamgourmet.com). You sign up with them and give them your actual email address and they create an account (lets say ‘bob’). Then you can use an almost infinite amount of email address like simpledollar.20.bob@spamgourmet.com. The 20 says I want to allow 20 emails through, bob is of course your account name and the simpledollar is something so you know which one it is.

You can whitelist email addresses so you get more then 20 from that one, and can reset the count (either up or down). That way if you sign up for something and they sell your email onwards, you can simply shut that account down and all further emails will be eaten.

This way you don’t have to set up new email accounts, and can filter what you do and do not want to see :)

]]>By: Georgehttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697164
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:53:39 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697164Seems to me that, if I were a potential spammer, I would quickly figure out the Google trick and truncate all email addresses at the + sign.

Hannah – why do I have to keep the clerk happy? What rule of business transactions says that is needed? All you’re doing is perpetuating the cycle of tactics that are bad for the consumer.

Keep in mind that it DOES NOT work for Google Apps for Your Domain. But there’s an easy work around for that: Go into the control panel and you can setup “nicknames”. So instead of giving them trent@hamm.com, you tell them retailers@hamm.com and it all goes to trent@hamm.com

]]>By: Hannahhttp://www.thesimpledollar.com/a-deal-collecting-email-address/#comment-697150
Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:30:44 +0000http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=3791#comment-697150I wanted to mention the same thing as Brent- If you like the simplicity of having one email address, but you also like the idea of filtering out this stuff, gmail has the + sign feature. When you sign up for websites without a convincing privacy policy, you can useyourrealemail+nameofspammysite@gmail.com and if spam starts appearing in your inbox, you’ll know where it came from and can filter it out. You can use yourrealemail+stuff@gmail.com, as Trent suggested, for emails you solicit from retail stores, etc.

Rather than just turning down the clerk at your favorite store when they ask for your email or phone number, keep in mind that they are often expected to meet quotas for collecting your info. This practice sucks, in my opinion, but if you want to help a friendly clerk out, give them a fake number and a modified email address and everybody’s happy.